Also this issue: Under the Radar Jim Putnam is not an undercover Brother. -Paul Burress Summer Monster The package tour -- something wicked this way comes. -Patrick Rapa Coming Up Rosey The rising pop star wants you to get Dirty. -Nicole Pensiero Beat Box -Ain� Ardron-Doley The Gig -Nate Chinen

July 12-18, 2002

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T.V. Smith

The Adverts, the tongue-in-cheek punks with whom leader T.V. Smith made his name, once declared themselves "One Chord Wonders," but even back then, that was simplifying the case. Sure, the band turned out its share of cookie-cutter London '77 anthems with titles like "Bored Teenagers" and "Television's Over," but Smith's impassioned warble gave the sentiments the immediacy they needed. (Before punk, people who sounded like that didn't get to front bands.) And when that voice met a song like "Gary Gilmore's Eyes," in which a transplant recipient wakes up with the spree killer's baby blues, well, there's nothing quite like it. Since then, Smith's turned out numerous albums, on his own, and with the Explorers and Barnstormer, but he's never gotten around to touring the States until now. He's still no stranger to blunt sentiments -- he doesn't hesitate to rhyme "Generation Y" with "jaundiced eye" -- so pared down to just him and a guitar they'll either strike like a fist or go over like a lead balloon. Whatever you do, don't show up late, or you'll miss opening act Attilla the Stockbroker, also a back-in-the-day Brit, whose spoken word performance reveals a comic socialist bent and a strange fascination with The Alarm.

Sun., July 14, 8:30 p.m., $5, with SUX and Attilla the Stockbroker, The Pontiac, 304 South St., 215-925-4053.

—Sam Adams